The Rebels of the Fallen

Smith, Brown, and Jones

"Nobody is going to believe this twice."

"Course they will."

"Even though we have a time machine, it would take me a year to explain all the reasons this shouldn't be working. I would make you sit for the entire year, listening to me explain why this shouldn't be working."

"Yeah but it is working."

I glared up at the Doctor. He smiled down at me. It didn't look any less annoying while he wore the blue pinstripe suit.

Currently, we were in the Royal Hope Hospital. The Doctor had detected some odd readings the other day- so we decided to investigate.

It had been a few weeks since what happened with Donna. Slow weeks, given our track record. I had slept for two days straight, practically in a coma. How festive. The Doctor had slept for a lot too- or refused to leave his room, it's a coin toss. Either way- neither of us were much of the adventuring spirit lately. Without Rose, without Donna, there hadn't seemed much point it all.

The gap between was rough. Lost of long sullen silences between us. No matter how fast we were running, Rose always seemed to be behind us. The Doctor would be laughing about something while turning to his side. On seeing nothing but air the joy vanished. It had hurt the first few times- crushing something deep inside of me.

But I would remember too sometimes

I'd hear the voices

They snuck into my mind- into the deepest parts that had once been empty. Now they existed as a void.

Who needed sleep, anyway?

Certainly not a girl who saw the vast expanse of hell in her dreams.

Did it affect her waking day? Absolutely not. She's still completely sane like before. There's a small upward projection of talking to herself, usually whispered under her breath in hopes that nobody would hear. If she jumped more often at shadows then it could be written off as a Vashta Narada fear than thinking she spotted one of them. Sure sometimes she was cold all over her body for no reason and nothing would warm her, her hoodie had AC nanobots, it was gonna happen.

Oh and she referenced herself in the third person but who hasn't done that?

If the Doctor noticed any of these new changes, these subtle changes to Terra Johnson- which was right now his only real friend then he wrote it off as just Terra's own grief. Not a smart move, but he was somewhat lost in his own grief. You would think he'd hyperfixate on Terra after nearly losing her, after losing Rose Tyler. That he would see that in no way was what Terra experiencing grief.

But as anyone who watched Season 3 learned, it was impossible for him to not think about Rose Tyler- even to the detriment of others.

I don't think it's such a big deal. Being ignored isn't a new thing for me. It's standard. It gave me more time to think to myself. Sure most of those thoughts went on a dark tangent, changing more often into a chilling reminder of what I'd seen in that place. Trauma was hard to shake off. But I had so much experience shaking off my emotions in the past (being abducted, abused, assaulted, all the 'a's really, dying!, killing) that hiding the trauma was just another level-up for me.

The TARDIS had still taken us great places in the meanwhile. A few distant planets that were actually going through peaceful times, a few distant markets (that we weren't banned from), one even a planet that was literally just a giant dog park.

Yeah. You heard me.

Dog park planet.

It has never physically pained me to leave a place before- but leaving those dogs left something broken inside of me.